Funny events in anti-woke world

[TheMysteriousGX]

Yes. If "some red states have started pushing laws down on their cities from above" is new and newsworthy, it suggests that red states don't typically do that.

And yet, here's the party of local governance doing exactly that on a broad scale, so...not a defense

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

Unless the person who went for the run up punch was related to the dude it just seems like a disproportionate response when there were enough people there who could have pushed him out of the place.

Punched dude committed assault first. Saying that nobody else should've countered him unless they were related to shoved guy is what leads to nobody doing anything while a woman gets raped on a train.

 

[crimson5pheonix]

Yes. If "some red states have started pushing laws down on their cities from above" is new and newsworthy, it suggests that red states don't typically do that.

Republicans in Texas have both tried to federalize elections through activist judges to legislate other states and have overturned local election administrations via partisan legislation. Republicans really do operate on "the level of government that is good is the level we control".

 

[ObsidianJones]

Oh are we back to punch people you disagree with again?

I figured the appropriate response to a jackass was to deal with words using word.

I will however say if the white haired guy the moron pushed had been the one punching him I'd happily have said it was a fair return though.

I've been trying not to respond to a lot of things that you've been posting, because you already have a lot of people responding to you and I don't like the idea of having another person that I only talk to in this forums to argue. That's really not my cup of tea.

However. This wasn't a disagreement. This was Assault and Battery

In an act of physical violence by one person against another, "assault" is usually paired with battery. In an act of physical violence, assault refers to the act which causes the victim to apprehend imminent physical harm, while battery refers to the actual act causing the physical harm.

Knowing the definition, re-watch the clip.

The threat of violence he spouted unprovoked because he disagreed with people. That's Assault. And then he shoved an elderly man, which is the Battery.

But the fact of the matter is you're willingly painting the situation as being unfair to the aggressor of this circumstance. It's not a simple disagreement. The one who's yelling at people who are just doing their job. The one who is threatening others because they have a different stance... or hell, might agree with him but are just following the rules. The one who committed battery on an old man. Your words are prejudicial in favor of the actual antagonist of this situation. It makes him seem like the victim. He is not.

Both the puncher and this guy need to be processed by the law. In fact, the puncher can easily state "Others were in danger and I was trying to defend them". This Ole Chestnut.

Defense of Another:
The right of a person to protect a third party with reasonable force against another person who is threatening to inflict force upon the third party.

And your personal viewpoint of this situation notwithstanding, the authorities will look at key determining facts to decide actual guilt. Timelines and Actions. Who said what first. Who initiated Contact. Who was responding to first contact. The Bald man went to an elderly gentleman, asked point blank if he wanted to start something, to which the elderly gentleman said he didn't want to start anything.

It was at that time the bald man pushed him. Now, armed with definitions, video, and statements from the people in the restaurant who seems like they are in the wrong here? And who has legal justification of force dispensed?

 

[Dwarvenhobble]

Are schools the place for free speech?

Is telling students to stop talking in class a violation of their right to free speech? Is asking teachers to teach a curriculum a violation of their right to free speech? Is expecting teachers not to make sexual comments about their students a violation of their right to free speech?

Schools are an environment with a specific purpose. It is not a "free" environment. It is highly regulated and controlled, and for good reasons. The people who go to school are children, they are not yet mentally developed. The purpose of school is ideally to support their mental development, so that they can become adults who can integrate into society. As someone on the radical left, there are many criticisms I could make of the school system and the curriculum it teaches. I could point to the fact that said curriculum is less about encouraging independent thought and more about enforcing social control, I could point to the "hidden curriculum" and the way schools are used to prepare children for the exploitation they will experience under capitalism. However, none of this is to say that school should be a place for people to impose whatever weird views and ideas they want onto children without oversight, even as an anarchist that sounds like an absolutely horrible idea.

Personally, I would argue that schools are academic institutions, and should impart academic ideals. Those ideals do not include free speech (at least not the warped definition of free speech American conservatives have adopted). Free speech, in an academic context, is something you earn. You earn it by being complete, accurate and by demonstrating your reasoning. I think an ideal education system would start preparing children for that reality almost from the point they can talk.

Kinda part of my point there. Yelling that it's trying to silence free speech by banning words in schools is pretty dumb when they aren't free speech places normally themselves.

 

[TheMysteriousGX]

There are no words

 

[Dwarvenhobble]

There are no words

You know you screwed up when you make Insulate Britain look good or like the smart ones in the room Jesus. Like there is an argument about sustainably source timber etc rather than just going "It's wood so it's sustainable" but nope the host dude goes to crazy town so fast.

 

[AnxietyProne]

Kinda part of my point there. Yelling that it's trying to silence free speech by banning words in schools is pretty dumb when they aren't free speech places normally themselves.

Then why do Conservatives demand religious speech for Christians (and only Christians, keep in mind) there under the 1st Amendment?

 

[AnxietyProne]

I've been trying not to respond to a lot of things that you've been posting, because you already have a lot of people responding to you and I don't like the idea of having another person that I only talk to in this forums to argue. That's really not my cup of tea.

However. This wasn't a disagreement. This was Assault and Battery



Knowing the definition, re-watch the clip.

The threat of violence he spouted unprovoked because he disagreed with people. That's Assault. And then he shoved an elderly man, which is the Battery.

But the fact of the matter is you're willingly painting the situation as being unfair to the aggressor of this circumstance. It's not a simple disagreement. The one who's yelling at people who are just doing their job. The one who is threatening others because they have a different stance... or hell, might agree with him but are just following the rules. The one who committed battery on an old man. Your words are prejudicial in favor of the actual antagonist of this situation. It makes him seem like the victim. He is not.

Both the puncher and this guy need to be processed by the law. In fact, the puncher can easily state "Others were in danger and I was trying to defend them". This Ole Chestnut.



And your personal viewpoint of this situation notwithstanding, the authorities will look at key determining facts to decide actual guilt. Timelines and Actions. Who said what first. Who initiated Contact. Who was responding to first contact. The Bald man went to an elderly gentleman, asked point blank if he wanted to start something, to which the elderly gentleman said he didn't want to start anything.

It was at that time the bald man pushed him. Now, armed with definitions, video, and statements from the people in the restaurant who seems like they are in the wrong here? And who has legal justification of force dispensed?

The only people conservatives believe should be assaulted for such things are anyone that is called a Communist, Antifa or BLM. As I've proven, though, ti's REALY easy to get considered one or more of those.

 

[Kwak]

Oh are we back to punch people you disagree with again?

I figured the appropriate response to a jackass was to deal with words using word.

I will however say if the white haired guy the moron pushed had been the one punching him I'd happily have said it was a fair return though.

You're a caricature of a right-wing concern troll.

 

[Dwarvenhobble]

You're a caricature of a right-wing concern troll.

Says the caricature of a crotchety old man whose engagement in topics often amount to throwing out accusations against a person somewhat at random and little more beyond that.

 

[Dwarvenhobble]

Then why do Conservatives demand religious speech for Christians (and only Christians, keep in mind) there under the 1st Amendment?

Well considering the case for the Church of Satan vs the abortion ban is set to be heard in Texas under the freedom of religious laws I don't think it's only Christians

 

[Trunkage]

There are no words

But you CAN grow concrete. How dare you say otherwise.

 

[Dwarvenhobble]

But you CAN grow concrete. How dare you say otherwise.

See you say that sarcastically but well

New ultra-resistant and self-repairing concrete materials

A team from the Universitat Politècnica de València (UPV) and the Politecnico di Milano has designed new ultra-resistant and self-repairing concrete materials. They have 30% more durability compared to conventional high-performance concrete in cracking situations. In the event of a crack, it is...

phys.org

The 'living concrete' that can heal itself

www.cnn.com

You can (To be absolutely clear not in the way the idiot in the video suggested). I figured it was funny enough case of "Well technically" to post

 

[tstorm823]

There are no words

It really is hard to express. Like, he stopped interviewing, he obviously recognized that he tripped over his own feet and faceplanted trying to "gotcha" the Insulate Britain guy, but then they actually post that online as a "Insulate Britain fail". Like, not even an attempt to edit it to look better, just "if we call it a fail, people will side with us, just post it".

That's genuinely shocking.

 

[XsjadoBlayde]

Trump-Backed QAnon Candidates Launch Group to ‘Control the Election System’

A Nevada secretary of state candidate announced at a QAnon conference he’s launched a new group with support from three Trump-endorsed candidates—and Mike Lindell.

www.vice.com

A coalition of right-wing MAGA candidates, including multiple Trump-backed candidates, are seeking to take control of elections in states across the U.S.—and one says they’re formally working with a group of conspiracy theorists, as well as with a QAnon influencer who some in the conspiracy movement believe in John F. Kennedy Jr. in disguise.

The group consists of five GOP candidates running for the key election position of secretary of state in Arizona, Nevada, Michigan, Georgia, and California, as well as one Pennsylvania lawmaker who may run for governor, which in Pennsylvania appoints the secretary of state. According to one of the candidates, it also has support from wealthy conspiracy theorists Mike Lindell and Patrick Byrne.

The reported coalition is just the latest example of how extreme QAnon-inspired conspiracy theories about election fraud and vote rigging have become pervasive in the Republican Party, and how those conspiracies are now driving this group to seek to take control of key election positions across the country ahead of the 2024 election.


The existence of the group, which doesn’t appear to have a name, was revealed by Nevada secretary of state candidate Jim Marchant at the “For God & Country: Patriot Double Down” conference that took place in Las Vegas over the weekend.

Marchant, a former Nevada state legislator who lost a hotly contested race for Congress in 2020, told the crowd that the genesis for the coalition began on November 4 last year, the day after he lost out to Rep. Steven Hosford in the race for a House seat. Like Trump, Marchant claims the election was stolen from him, and so, in his words, he “got to work.”

“I got a suite in the Venetian hotel across the hall from the Trump attorneys and the Trump people that came in to start investigating the election fraud here in Nevada,” Marchant said Monday. “And guess who showed up at my suite? Juan O Savin.”

Savin is the alias for an anonymous QAnon influencer and author who until this weekend never showed his face in public and was best known because some QAnon followers believed he was John F. Kennedy Jr. in disguise.

“We need to take back the secretaries of state offices around the country. So not only did they ask me to run, they asked me to put together a coalition,” Marchant claimed.

It is unclear how Marchant knew Savin but “for the next three to five months we worked on trying to expose the election, the fraudulent election here in Nevada and everywhere actually.”

And on May 1, according to Marchant, the coalition held its inaugural meeting in Las Vegas. Marchant said he and Savin were joined by MyPillow CEO and renowned election fraud conspiracist Mike Lindell, and Overstock.com founder Patrick Byrne, who pushed Trump to declare martial law to stay in power at a White House meeting late in his presidency and has since spent millions of dollars investigating election fraud conspiracies. Marchant added that founder of the conspiracy website the Gateway Pundit, Jim Hoft, and his twin brother Joe Hoft, “zoomed into” the inaugural meeting. Brian Kennedy, a senior fellow and former president of the right-wing think tank the Claremont Institute, also attended, according to Marchant.

“That was our inaugural meeting to start strategizing for the coalition. I can’t stress enough how important the secretary of state offices are. I think they are the most important elections in our country in 2022. And why is that? We control the election system,” Marchant said after recounting the meeting’s attendees. “In 2022 we’re going to take back our country.”

Marchant was light on details about exactly what form this “coalition” will take, not mentioning what legal structure it will have, what its specific goals will be past getting hardline Trump acolytes into powerful positions to run the 2024 elections, and whether there will be serious money behind the efforts. Marchant, Lindell, Byrne, Kennedy, and all the candidates Marchant said are involved didn’t reply to requests for comment. But both Lindell and Byrne have deep pockets, and could fund a major effort to back these candidates.

The coalition already includes three candidates backed by former President Donald Trump.

These include Kristina Karamo, a GOP activist running for Michigan secretary of state who has Trump’s endorsement. Karamo spoke immediately after Marchant at the same QAnon conference, and thanked him for putting together the effort.

“I want to thank Jim Marchant for putting the coalition together. We owe him so much,” Karamo said before calling the incumbent, Democratic Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, “evil” and claiming there was widespread voting fraud in Michigan despite piles of evidence to the contrary.

Also in the coalition is Rep. Jody Hice, a sitting congressman from Georgia. Hice is the strong favorite to win the GOP nomination for secretary of state—Trump has endorsed him and is seeking payback against Republican Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger for refusing his attempts to flip his loss. He may have the edge in the general election too; Georgia is a GOP-leaning swing state and 2022 will be a tough election environment for Democrats.

Mark Finchem, a sitting Arizona state lawmaker, also has Trump's endorsement for the secretary of state position, and likely starts off with the edge in a crowded primary field, though even by the standards of this crowd he's controversial.

Another member of the coalition is Pennsylvania lawmaker Doug Mastriano, who has been pushing hard for a Maricopa-style recount in his own state.

Mastriano, who has discussed election issues with Trump, is eyeing a run for governor, and if he were to win, he’d have the power to appoint the secretary of state in Pennsylvania.

Mastriano hasn't officially jumped into the race—he's said he's looking for a sign from God that he'll raise enough money—but has previously said that Trump asked him to run for governor, a sign the former President is likely to endorse should Mastriano jump in. Former Pennsylvania Rep. Lou Barletta, a strong Trump backer who lost a 2018 run for Senate, is currently the front-runner in that race.

Marchant doesn’t have Trump’s endorsement—yet—and faces a crowded field for the GOP nomination, including former Las Vegas news anchor Gerard Ramalho, former judge Richard Scotti, and Sparks Councilman Kristopher Dahir. The general election could be a tight one in the swing state, where Republicans usually do quite well in the midterms. Democratic attorney Cisco Aguilar, a one-time staffer for former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, is the early favorite to be the Democratic nominee.

The final member of the coalition is California’s Rachel Hamm—but Republicans have almost zero chance of winning that race in the deep blue state.

Marchant said he is close to getting another candidate in Colorado to sign up for the coalition, but he didn’t want to name them yet.

Karamo, Hamm, and Finchem all appeared alongside Marchant at the QAnon conference, discussing their plans for undermining election integrity during a panel discussion on Monday.

During the panel discussion Marchant laid out the coalition’s priorities should they get any of their candidates elected. These include advocating for voter ID laws, getting rid of Dominion voting machines, limiting voting to a single day, eradicating all mail-in ballots, “cleaning up” voter rolls, and allowing the public in to watch vote counting.

Another aspect of their plan is to introduce what Marchant called “anti-counterfeitable” ballots. In fact, the coalition members visited a company in Texas recently that Marchant said that makes paper that is difficult to tamper with.

Those measures include the use of hologram labels and are made of proprietary material that can only be read by special machines.

“No more ballots from China,” Marchant told the crowd, winking at a QAnon conspiracy theory that boxes stuffed with ballots from Asia were used to swing the election in Maricopa County in favor of President Joe Biden.

QAnon influencers have been spreading election fraud conspiracies long before Trump and his allies began boosting them in the wake of their 2020 election loss. But in the months since the election, as Trump has refused to accept defeat, he has pushed those conspiracies into the mainstream.

It is unclear how Savin came into contact with Marchant, but as one QAnon researcher put it on Twitter: “I cannot emphasize enough how much you'd have to be Q-pilled to know anything about Juan O Savin. Prior to this event, Juan had never even broadcast his face. You'd HAVE to be deep into the movement to see him as a famous person.”

Marchant, Finchem, Mastriano, Hice, Hamm, and Karamo all failed to respond to VICE News’ requests for more information about the coalition and its formation.

Until this weekend, Savin was only known by those deeply read into the QAnon world and he has protected his identity by never appearing on camera during podcasts and other interviews, preferring to show only his cowboy boots.

Savin’s real name is not widely known, but a biography on the book catalog website Goodreads lists a book written by Savin with the following blurb:

“This book is a four chapter transcript of speeches by Wayne Willott, using his nom de plume Juan O Savin. Wayne is a major player in the Conspiracy movement having established for himself excellent credibility as a QAnon.”

Goodreads did not immediately respond to VICE News’ question about who wrote the blurb.

Last weekend Savin stepped into the spotlight, appearing on stage for the first time, though he continued to use only his alias.

During several appearances on stage, Savin spouted his typical mixture of conspiracies about everything from COVID-19 to the Oklahoma City bombing. At one point he showed off a dress he claims was the one being worn by Melania Trump when the former first lady departed the White House for the last time.

Savin claimed the patterned dress actually included a message hidden in “the language of semaphore.”

Another notable aspect of Savin’s mythos within the QAnon community is that many people believe that he is actually John F. Kennedy Jr. in disguise. Savin has never disabused people of this in any public statement and during the weekend, many QAnon supporters once again compared the pair.

And don't ask why they believe a guy is JFK junior in disguise, it ain't worth it.

Hey, I said don't ask!

...

*sigh* Your twisted curious depravities know no bounds, fine...here's a link, but this is as far as I'm willing to enable you morbidly sick feckos: https://www.patreon.com/posts/explainer-jfk-jr-51462344

 

[Silvanus]

Are you saying that without government oversight, pharma companies would send a random amount of drugs to random countries if you bought drugs from them?

No. I'm saying that two thousand privately-run hospitals, each ordering their own supply and managing their own transport needs with a privately-run producer overseas, are not going to be running a national system as coherently or as public-focused as a state entity with no profit motive.

Again, feels odd to have to be arguing against privatisation with a self-described socialist.

That's nice, but that's not what's being discussed. They can be as altruistic as they want, it doesn't prevent a supply shortage.

Damn well makes it less likely than trusting solely in the profit motive to create a stable, user-focused provision.

Well I expect that demand will be supplied, I don't expect it to be done cheaply or efficiently. But I mean, as bad as the US system is, it is literally a bunch of private entities independently coming to a fully comprehensive system amongst themselves. It has indeed happened, and excluding costs, the quality of care is certainly on par. The actual production and distribution of drugs happens with or without nationalized healthcare, because that's not what most nationalized healthcare programs concern themselves with.

I feel like I'm in upside-down world... you're now arguing the stability and sufficiency of the godawful US American healthcare system? The one both of us have spent years decrying on this very forum?

In case you've forgotten, the US system does not comprise a "fully comprehensive system". Quality of care differs enormously from private entity to private entity, and they have to compete amongst themselves in bidding wars for vital lifesaving equipment. Remember the free-for-all for ventilators? Driving the price up, creating unnecessary shortages? And the quality of care is nowhere near on par. People must decide whether to get vital treatments or not, because doing so could mean bankruptcy. Americans spend a ton more on healthcare per head and still end up with shittier service, less reliable service.

The profit motive at play, twisting what should be a public-oriented service into a money-gouging exercise. That's what you get removing all oversight and regulation, leaving it all up to market forces.

Well obviously it takes 2 weeks to send post to Britain and they only send out the letters a week before the meetings :V

But yes, have you never socialized with others? Do people at work not talk about current events? I know talking politics in public is supposed to be tabboo, but that's a load of shit and talking to people face to face you find out what they've read and where, and talk about it.

Yup. I have those discussions frequently, at work etc, particularly since I live in London and work in the centre. And people do not know how much policies cost or most details of implementation. Including myself, most of the time, because I haven't specifically researched these things.

Despite it's many successes.

*Despite the many successes of direct democratic referenda in representative democracies, which neither of us are arguing against.

 

[Gergar12]

Elon Musk complains about a Billionaire tax while according to my conservative econ professor him and Jeff Bezos are some of the most prolific governments subsidy hunters. And of course half of my class sighs.

He took money for SpaceX to make a moon lander and Tesla EV subsidies during the Obama era.

 

[crimson5pheonix]

No. I'm saying that two thousand privately-run hospitals, each ordering their own supply and managing their own transport needs with a privately-run producer overseas, are not going to be running a national system as coherently or as public-focused as a state entity with no profit motive.

Again, feels odd to have to be arguing against privatisation with a self-described socialist.

Because your reasoning is really wonky, which I'll get to here in a moment.

Damn well makes it less likely than trusting solely in the profit motive to create a stable, user-focused provision.

Well no it doesn't, because supply chain issues typically don't happen in the last stretch, which is where a government healthcare program does it's work.

I feel like I'm in upside-down world... you're now arguing the stability and sufficiency of the godawful US American healthcare system? The one both of us have spent years decrying on this very forum?

In case you've forgotten, the US system does not comprise a "fully comprehensive system". Quality of care differs enormously from private entity to private entity, and they have to compete amongst themselves in bidding wars for vital lifesaving equipment. Remember the free-for-all for ventilators? Driving the price up, creating unnecessary shortages? And the quality of care is nowhere near on par. People must decide whether to get vital treatments or not, because doing so could mean bankruptcy. Americans spend a ton more on healthcare per head and still end up with shittier service, less reliable service.

The profit motive at play, twisting what should be a public-oriented service into a money-gouging exercise. That's what you get removing all oversight and regulation, leaving it all up to market forces.

Here's why I think you're getting wonky. The American system is shit because people can't use it because they will go bankrupt if they try. But that being said, if I go to the hospital with a ruptured appendix, they will remove it and save my life. The American system isn't shit because you're less likely to receive good care in the hospital compared to other nations, it's shit because you're less likely to make it to a hospital in the first place compared to other nations. And if your argument is supply chains, then as I've been saying, the government's hand in supply chains is absurdly small.

And if we're talking about ventilators:

Covid-19: Government was too slow to respond to ventilator shortages, say MPs

The NHS managed to provide care for all patients affected by covid-19 who needed ventilators earlier this year despite the government being underprepared and slow in responding to hospitals’ needs, MPs have said. Good luck rather than design helped the NHS to care for patients with covid-19...

www.bmj.com

Covid: UK spent £569m on 20,900 ventilators but most remain unused

Government was right to prioritise speed over cost, says National Audit Office

www.theguardian.com

Scrambling happened everywhere, and everyone was causing shortages.

Yup. I have those discussions frequently, at work etc, particularly since I live in London and work in the centre. And people do not know how much policies cost or most details of implementation. Including myself, most of the time, because I haven't specifically researched these things.

King Silvanus has a fault? Shock!

Then by your own logic, should you not express your uninformed opinion on policy?

*Despite the many successes of direct democratic referenda in representative democracies, which neither of us are arguing against.

*and whole ass constitution writing

 

[bluegate]

Elon Musk complains about a Billionaire tax while according to my conservative econ professor him and Jeff Bezos are some of the most prolific governments subsidy hunters. And of course half of my class sighs.

He took money for SpaceX to make a moon lander and Tesla EV subsidies during the Obama era.

More than happy to receive tax dollars, god forbid he'd have to actually give something back in taxes.